Instructors: Michael Kearney MD, Radhule Weinenger PhD MD, Miranda Field LMFT, Andrew Smyth LMFT
Location: Sedgwick Preserve
Date: 5/24/25 9am-4pm
6 CE Hours (For mental health practioners)
Cost: $60, $90 with CE
This one day workshop that draws on Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects as a path to deep
resilience is about establishing foundational resilience skills by opening up a “Field of Care” and
helping us to glimpse the luminous essence of our deepest nature. We will also work with
practices that can transform our painful feelings into chords of connection, and from this
secure, inclusive base move out and spend time on the land, listening deeply and practicing
nature connection in a way that help us remember our identity as “interbeings” and to open up
to a deeper emergent wisdom. Finally, we will consider what supports and resources we need
to bring what we’ve learned back into our everyday lives and to our beautiful but wounded
world.
- Identify 3 common occupational stress syndromes and articulate their distinct etiology and symptoms.
- Define ‘self care 1.0’ and ‘self care 2.0’.
- Experientially learn 4 practical methods from mindfulness practices that develop resilience.
- Practice and develop competence in 1 emotion regulation skill.
- Understand how to use sensory awareness as a tool for nature connection and self regulation.
Instructors
Michael Kearney MD
Michael Kearney has over 40 years’ experience in palliative care and has worked
with two pioneers in the field, Dame Cicely Saunders, and Professor Balfour
Mount. Since 2005 he has worked with the Palliative Care Consultation Service
at Cottage Hospital and at Serenity House Hospice, in Santa Barbara, California.
He was lead author on an article about burnout and resilience published in JAMA
in 2009 entitled, “Self-care of physicians working at the end-of-life.” He is the
author of four books, Mortally Wounded: Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and
Healing, A Place of Healing: Working with Nature and Soul at the End of Life,
The Nest in the Stream: Lessons from Nature on Being with Pain, and his most
recent book, Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging, a fable of a young
Irish woman who finds an antidote for her climate despair in the wisdom of trees.
He is currently working on a book entitled, Deep Resilience: An Effortless Path to
Staying Open-hearted, Present, and Engaged in a Wounded World. He is the
founder and director of the Becoming Forest Project, which offers deep resilience
training to individuals and groups. He is married to psychologist, meditation
teacher, and author Radhule Weininger PhD. They teach and write together and
share six adult children between them. Visit: www.michaelkearneymd.com .
Radhule Weinenger Phd MD
Radhule is a clinical psychologist and teacher of Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology. She is the co-founder and guiding teacher of the non-profit, Mindful Heart Programs which offers a safe refuge for meditation and education programs in mindfulness, meditation, and nature connection in the Santa Barbara area. Prior to its closing, Radhule was the resident teacher of mindfulness practice at the La Casa de Maria Retreat Center in Santa Barbara, California. She is mentored by Jack Kornfield in her teaching and by Joanna Macy in her interest in Engaged Buddhism. In her Dzogchen practice, she is supported by her mentor Dan Brown, PhD
Radhule has a strong interest in the direct experience of the sacred and how this can inspire our service to others.
Radhule has a full-time psychotherapy office, in which she sees individuals and groups. Integrating psychodynamic, Jungian and Gestalt psychotherapies, she is finding innovative ways to complement Western with Buddhist psychology. For many years Radhule guides an ongoing dream group, as well as an ongoing mindfulness psychotherapy group.
Radhule teaches a variety of seminars, from half-day to weekend –to weeklong retreats, in which she makes Buddhist Mindfulness and Compassion practices relevant to 21st-century modern life concerns. Carefully, yet lightly guided meditations make mindfulness meditation accessible to all of us.
Radhule spearheaded with her husband Michael Kearney, MD the “Solidarity and Compassion Project,” whose vision is to nourish and sustain us in our attempt to support those who are left vulnerable in our society while discerning the values that we want to go forward with an attitude of integrity and caring.
Miranda Fields LMFT
Miranda has been practicing psychotherapy since 1986. Her approach draws
from a background in psychodynamic and attachment orientations,
trauma-informed and somatic therapies, and mindfulness practices.
Miranda’s therapy, supervision and training work seek to create movement
towards the truest expression of our core selves. To live more fully and deeply, to
have closer, more loving relationships, and to feel resilient in the face of challenge.
In addition to private practice, Miranda has served as Clinical Director to a number
of nonprofit counseling organizations, including C.A.L.M. and NBCC.
Outside of her private practice, you are most likely to find Miranda hiking on
the trails or beaches of Santa Barbara with her dogs. Yoga, meditation, and
time in nature are core touchstones in her life.
Andrew Smyth LMFT
Andrew Smyth is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Santa Barbara, California. He specializes in helping individuals and families navigate life’s challenges with a holistic, nature-based approach that fosters healing, connection, and growth. With a trauma-informed approach he guides clients towards emotional well-being through mindfulness, nature connection, and somatic therapy.
FOR YOUR CALENDAR:
October 10 through 13, 2025 we will be offering a 4-day training program: Self-Care 2.0,
Luminous Resilience, also at the Sedgwick Reserve.
These are not normal times. The disruption, uncertainty, fear, grief, and even despair at
what is happening in our communities, in our country, and in our world can at times feel
overwhelming. One understandable reaction is to disconnect from the chaos and the pain, and
withdraw into the protective shell of our individual concerns and distractions. But many of us
feel called to stay engaged, which is not easy and comes at a cost. Despite all that we know
about how essential it is to take care of ourselves, many of us are suffering from burnout. Self-
care as we know and practice it is simply not enough. We need “Self-Care 2.0,” we need deep
resilience.
This will be an opportunity to experience skills and practices that can open up a Field of
Care and help us to remember our deep connection with the natural world and experience the
luminous ground of our deepest nature. We then become fields of care for ourselves, others,
and our world
